CIBA Policy Statement on Pesticides

The California Indian Basketweavers’ Association is opposed to the use of pesticides. We have adopted this position for the following reasons:

The web of life that connects all living things is harmed when poisons are applied to our environment.

The biological diversity of our forests and wetlands is diminished when pesticides are applied to our environment.

Many of these same plants provide us with our food and teas, are used in baskets and for healing, ceremonial and other traditional purposes. When we harvest and use these plants, or take fish or game, we want to know that they are free of poisons. We want the assurance that we are not endangering our health or that of our children and unborn generations.

Pesticides contribute to the poisoning of water tables and watershed and the destruction of fisheries.

The licensing and regulation of pesticides favors pesticide manufacturers and users over public health and environmental well-being. The long term effects of pesticides currently being used are not known. There is mounting evidence that pesticides are contributing to an increase in human cancers and to reproductive disorders throughout the animal kingdom.

We condemn the policy of acceptable risk, which maintains that there is an acceptable level of human suffering and environmental degradation that can be balanced out by the benefits of using pesticides. The costs of pesticide use to people, wildlife, and ecosystems is immense, often personal and tragic, and can never be justified by economic gain.